Feeding time! How do you get your fussy ones to eat?

My male mojave usually wont touch the f/t rat if he comes out of his hide, so I have to poke the feeders head into his hide and he always strikes and eats!

Took me many frustrating weeks to figure this out, he would always come out and smell the rat then slither off somewhere...


How do you guys coax your fussy BP's into eating?

I sacrifice heat bulbs to the ball python gods until all of my snakes are eating consistently.

No, actually, I usually start from the bottom and go up. Make sure the hot side is hot, if it's a fussy eater they'll get a hide on the hot side, then one on the cool side, and after a couple weeks that usually takes care of it if it's not breeding season. A couple times I've run into a ball that was finicky due to humidity - increasing general humidity in the enclosure turned out to be what was making the girls picky, not anything else. I have dealt with a couple of picky mouse eaters, but usually once finding the preferred prey item, tweaking cage conditions will take care of any finicky eating.

With all frozen thawed, I assume first that the snake will not take it without encouragement (using tweezers/hemostats to offer the rodent). Personally, I'll only leave F/T in the cage if it's a colubrid or a snake I know for certain is enthusiastic about finding the rodent. Most of my BPs will take a frozen/thawed if it's dangled or offered to them with tweezers, but won't take them just being left in the cage.

That's just my experience, though. :)

-Jen

Isabelle and I have an agreement: I put the FT mouse in before I go to bed, and it's gone by the next morning. She hates the zombie dance, and will completely ignore it if it moves anywhere near her head. So I just put it on her warm side and make sure it's nice and dark in my room, and she'll usually take it while I'm asleep. (I wouldn't recommend refreezing after it's out overnight, if you try this-- just too much possibility for bacteria buildup.)